


A Delicate Art

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6146230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four shots of tequila is all it takes to get Arthur drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Delicate Art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flosculatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculatory/gifts).



> This is for flosculatory for winning the Oscars pool. The prompts were origami, drunk Arthur, and a goldfish dying.

Eames got a text from Mitchell, who was the architect on the job he and Arthur were currently working. The text said, _Hasn’t your fantasy been to get Arthur drunk?_

Eames snorted at the text, because, well, of fucking course that was his fantasy, but Arthur never got drunk, Arthur drank wine by swirling it around in his mouth, or he nursed one beer for an entire night, or he tried not to grimace while he pretended to like Scotch. So Eames was filing his drunk-Arthur fantasy away as Unattainable Except in Dreams, like his sex-on-the-moon-with-Arthur fantasy and his Arthur-likes-to-cook-naked fantasy. 

Eames tossed his cell phone toward the bed in his hotel room and headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he came out of the bathroom, shedding clothes in preparation for getting into bed, there were a lot more texts from Mitchell. 

_I’m not joking, Eames._

_He’s very drunk right now._

_OH MY GOD GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE._

_I AM NOT DEALING WITH HIM ANYMORE. HE IS OFFICIALLY YOUR RESPONSIBILITY._

Eames lifted his eyebrows. 

***

At first Eames, walking into the hotel bar, missed Arthur entirely. Which should have been impossible to do, because Arthur was in the middle of a raucous crowd with his head tipped back balancing a stack of four shot glasses on his forehead. Which was exactly why Eames’s eyes, looking for _Arthur_ , had initially slid right over the sweaty, disheveled, fratboy mess. 

“I swear to fucking Christ, I am really excellent at this, once I stacked SEVENTEEN SHOT GLASSES on my forehead.” 

Arthur’s voice, thought Eames, and turned back to the sweaty, disheveled, fratboy mess. That was _Arthur’s voice_. 

“Man, that’s impossible,” said an overweight businessman in the crowd watching _Arthur_. “I bet you a hundred bucks you can’t do that.” The businessman slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the table in front of Arthur. 

Arthur, his head tipped back so he could keep balancing the shot glasses, flapped his hand around blindly and shouted, “Bring me more shot glasses!” 

To Eames’s amazement, the bartender started assembling a stack of shot glasses. 

Eames said to the bartender, “There’s no way he’s going to be able to balance  _seventeen_  shot glasses. Think about that. You could barely balance seventeen just on the bar itself.” 

The bartender shrugged and said, “He’s got a tab open. He told me to charge him triple for anything he breaks and keep the difference.” 

Eames frowned and stepped forward, edging through the crowd that had assembled around Arthur. “Okay,” he said authoritatively. “That’s enough.” 

The crowd groaned at him. Eames managed to rescue the shot glasses from crashing to the floor when Arthur abruptly straightened. Well, he rescued one of the shot glasses. The other three shattered. 

“EAMES!” exclaimed Arthur. “I am REALLY GOOD AT THAT. You RUINED it.” 

“I don’t think I did,” Eames said. 

“You ruin everything,” Arthur complained. “Ugh, you’re such a ruiner. RUINER. That’s probably your fucking first name, isn’t it? RUINER. RUINER EAMES.” 

“You’re on to me,” Eames said. “How’d you know?” 

“I know everything, Eames.” Arthur leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “ _Everything_.” Arthur overbalanced and tipped into Eames’s chest. 

“Okay,” Eames said in bewilderment, and straightened Arthur. “What the fuck. How much have you had to drink?”

Arthur put his thumb and index finger against each other. “This much.” 

“That’s nothing, Arthur. You’ve had more than nothing to drink.” 

Arthur shook his head. “I know everything. ‘S my job. Point man. I take care of everything.” Arthur slumped against Eames. “Everything tequila.” 

“Yeah,” Eames agreed. He wanted to find this funny, but instead it was just incredibly confusing. This just seemed…so unlike Arthur. “What’s going on, Arthur?” 

“Nothing,” Arthur said against him. Then he straightened and glared at him. “Hey, where’d you come from?”

“My room,” Eames said. 

“Mitchell was here. Wait. Are you forging Mitchell?” 

“No, I’m being me. And this isn’t a dream.” 

“Do you know what I hate?” 

“What?” 

“Your fucking face.” 

“Charming, Arthur, thank you.” 

“It’s a stupid face. It’s a really stupid face. And I hate fish. I really fucking hate fish, Eames. _Ugh. Fish_.”

Eames decided that there was no point talking to Arthur in this state. He tried to carry most of Arthur’s weight–since Arthur seemed incapable of it–and turned to the bartender. “How much has he had?” 

“The four shots,” said the bartender drily. 

“Four shots,” repeated Eames, and suddenly a switch flipped in his brain, shifting from bewilderment to fondness. This was why Mitchell had left drunk Arthur for him to deal with, because Eames somehow, against all odds, was immensely charmed by this disgusting, revolting mess half-collapsed against him. “Darling,” he said, amused, and turned to brush his lips into Arthur’s hair, because that seemed appropriate. “Four shots. And you’re in this state?” 

“Shut up,” Arthur mumbled into Eames’s neck. “What state? It’s a good state. I’m a good state. You know what else is a good state? Maine. Maine is a good state. But not Vermont. Fucking Vermont.” 

Eames chuckled and turned back to the bartender. “Close out his tab, I’ll sign for him.” 

The bartender shrugged. Eames left him a hefty tip because hey, it was Arthur’s money and he also assumed Arthur would want him to. 

“Here we go,” he said, rousing Arthur where he’d seemed to have fallen asleep against Eames’s shoulder. 

“Are we going out?” asked Arthur brightly, as Eames tugged him forward. 

“No. We’re definitely not going out.” 

“Why not? I’m just getting started! With tequila! I love tequila!” 

“I don’t think you do.” Eames pushed the button for the lift. “I’ve never seen you drink tequila before. Come here, love.” Eames nudged Arthur around so he could hunt for his room key. 

“Stop,” said Arthur, batting ineffectually at Eames’s hands. “Your hanmandling me.” 

“I am neither hanmandling you nor manhandling you.”

“What’s that?” asked Arthur, as the lift arrived. 

“Let’s go,” Eames said, guiding him onto the lift and punching the button for Arthur’s floor. 

Under ordinary circumstances, Arthur would have frowned over Eames knowing where his room was. Under these circumstances, Arthur slid to the floor of the lift and said urgently, “ _Eames_.” 

“What?” Eames asked in alarm, looking down at him. And wondering how much those trousers were worth. Sober Arthur would have had a fit. 

“ _This room is moving_.” 

Eames stared at him. “It’s an elevator, love. What the fuck, this is you on four shots? Did you take something, too?” 

“Take what?” Arthur asked blankly. 

“I don’t know, sketchy mushrooms you picked in the parking lot?” Eames suggested. 

“Mushrooms don’t grow in parking lots, Eames, they grow in FORESTS,” Arthur told him seriously. 

“Good point,” Eames said. “You really do know everything.” 

The lift stopped and the doors opened and Eames put his foot out to block them from closing again and said, “Come on, I think the mushrooms are this way.” 

Arthur stood with elaborate dignity and walked out of the lift. “I don’t think so,” he told Eames, sounding like he pitied him for thinking there were mushrooms in the hotel. 

“So, pet,” Eames said, as he swiped Arthur’s room key for him, “you are going to drink lots of water and sleep off your four whole tequila shots.” 

“ _Water_ ,” cried Arthur, as if stricken, and walked into his room and collapsed dramatically onto his bed. 

“Yes,” Eames agreed, snagging a bottle of water from the desk in the room. “A lot of water.” 

Arthur shook his head. 

“Come on,” Eames said, shifting Arthur to sit up more so he could have some water. 

Arthur resisted the water. Arthur looked at Eames seriously and said, “I want you to respect me in the morning.” 

“I’m not going to shag you, Arthur, you’re drunk out of your mind. I’m not going to take advantage of you. Which is why I’m not going to try to get you to tell me what’s wrong that would make you do this, this thing that is incredibly unlike you. You don’t have to tell me, Arthur, I’m not going to pry but I’m hoping you _would_  tell me if you needed help, of any sort. You would, right?” Eames made sure to hold Arthur’s gaze…

…and was startled to find that Arthur’s eyes were wet with tears. 

“Arthur,” he said in surprise, feeling horrible, because he’d been worried Arthur was in trouble, but not…not _sad_. Eames suddenly couldn’t think of anything worse than Arthur being so sad that he’d gone in search of tequila to shut it off. “Darling.” He cupped his hands gently around Arthur’s face. And he forgot all about his promise not to pry. This wasn’t prying, this was just…being a good friend. Which he and Arthur were, even if they’d never said it out loud. “What happened? What’s wrong?” 

Arthur lifted his hands and looped his fingers around Eames’s wrists and looked straight into Eames’s eyes, as forlorn as Eames had ever seen him, and said, “My goldfish died.” 

Eames blinked. “Your…what?” 

“My _goldfish_ , Eames,” said Arthur, and then wrenched his face from Eames’s grasp and turned his face into his pillow. 

“You…have a goldfish?” Eames asked, unsure what else to say. 

“ _Had_ ,” Arthur corrected him, voice muffled by the pillow. “ _Had_  a goldfish. I killed him.” 

“How did you kill him?” asked Eames carefully. 

“Neglect,” Arthur wailed into his pillow. “I _neglected_  him. And I killed him. He was depending on me and I fucked it up and I can’t even keep a fucking _goldfish_  alive and what the fuck am I doing with my fucking life I’m going around killing innocent amphibians.” 

Eames said after a second, “He was a fish, not an amphibian.” 

“You’re missing the point!” Arthur complained to his pillow. “The point is that I am a terrible human being and I killed Escher and I ruin everything and you shouldn’t trust me you should go away before I get you killed, too, with my magical killing powers of neglect.” 

Eames looked down at the bereft body language of Arthur, curled around his pillow, a visible mess, and felt his chest break open. Lots of room, he thought, for Arthur to crawl in there. “You named your fish Escher?” he said. 

“Yes,” Arthur sniffled into his pillow. “He was a really nice fish. He was always happy to see me. And I just…I just killed him.”

Eames sighed and sat next to Arthur on the bed and brushed at his tumbled untidy hair. “Darling Arthur,” he said, and then didn’t know what else to say. He had fallen into the habit of trusting Arthur blindly, and he had never stopped to think of the toll it must be taking on Arthur, all these lives in his hands constantly. “You’re so busy keeping everyone else safe. Who keeps you safe?”

There was a long silence. Arthur eventually said, sounding exhausted, “I do. I keep me safe.” 

“Yeah,” Eames agreed softly, still stroking at Arthur’s hair. “You do, don’t you?” 

There was another moment of silence, and then Arthur shifted, looking up at Eames. “He had a little castle.” 

“Escher?”

“Yes. He liked the castle.” 

Eames decided it would be cruel to point out that Escher had been a goldfish with a tiny brain. Eames said instead, “You were a very nice goldfish owner, to get him a castle.”

“I might be a terrible person,” Arthur said. 

“You’re crying over a goldfish, love. You’re clearly not a terrible person.”

“He didn’t do anything to deserve having me in charge of him.” 

“No,” said Eames, smiling softly down at Arthur, still stroking the hair off his forehead. “He just got lucky.” 

“I don’t like tequila,” Arthur said.

“I know.” 

“I just don’t want to _lose_  things,” Arthur said. 

“I know.” 

“Even when I get everything right, I still _lose_  things. Would you stay if I hadn’t had the tequila?”

“Arthur,” Eames said gently. “You should stop talking.”

“But would you?” Arthur insisted. 

“Darling.” Eames leaned down to rest his forehead against Arthur’s and took a deep shaky breath, and Arthur reeked of sweat and alcohol and smoke, not usual Arthur smells, and Eames, newly reminded, said softly, “You’re not yourself. Drink some water, go to sleep, things will look better in the morning.” 

“Please don’t leave me here alone,” Arthur said, very clearly begging. “I didn’t want to be alone. That’s why I went down to the bar.” 

And a repeat of that occurrence seemed like a very bad idea, thought Eames. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay. But only if you’re capable of getting out this suit, because it has seen much better days.” Eames straightened and stood and went briskly through Arthur’s suitcase in the corner, finding a remarkable t-shirt and an even more remarkable pair of sweatpants. Eames wanted to ask if Arthur wore normal clothing when he wasn’t working and then realized he was seeing something very private and it wasn’t fair of him to ask about it. “Here,” he said, handing Arthur the clothes, where he’d managed to sit up on the edge of the bed. “To the bathroom with you.” 

Arthur walked at a decently steady pace into the bathroom, and Eames kept an ear out to any catastrophe going on in there. He’d been ready for bed himself before going down to the bar, and he’d only paused to pull on jeans, so he pulled them off and decided his t-shirt and pants would have to be chaste enough for the evening. 

Arthur came out of the bathroom in the t-shirt and sweatpants, looking impossibly young. He crawled into the bed and cocooned himself into the blankets and looked out at Eames. “Aren’t you getting in?” 

Eames hesitated, then joined him, and Arthur snuggled tight up against him, and Eames thought, _Oh, yes, this won’t be torture all night_. 

“Your face is nice,” Arthur said. “I’m sorry I said I hated it.” 

Eames said, “You should drink some water.” 

Arthur said, “Water killed Escher. He drowned in it.” 

Eames said, “Fish don’t drown, Arthur.” 

Arthur said, “Thank you for staying, Eames,” and pressed his nose into Eames’s chest. 

***

Arthur slept the way he usually had dreamers sleeping around him: utterly trusting, utterly vulnerable, utterly undefended. Every breath Arthur took, heavy against Eames, was another step in Eames’s undoing. Eames had watched Arthur use the butt of his gun to break a man’s fingers one by one; press a steel switchblade up against the neck of a Russian mobster; flee from buildings leaving entire earthquakes in his wake. Now Eames watched Arthur sleep and felt so protective that it made him unable to breathe. Arthur was the most precious thing in the world, and no one was keeping him safe. He was keeping himself safe. And yes, he was more than capable of doing that but even Arthur wanted, every once in a while, to squeeze his eyes shut and let someone else be in charge. 

Eames slid out of bed before Arthur woke and left him a note saying he should drink more water (underlined three times) and Eames would be back shortly. Then Eames went back to his room and took a long shower and felt slightly better about the activities that went on in the shower than he would have had he engaged in them with Arthur snoring a few feet away. Then Eames fetched himself coffee and grabbed a newspaper and went back up to Arthur’s room. 

Arthur was in the bathroom looking positively green. 

“Hello there,” Eames said, looking down at him where he was curled on the tile floor. 

“I’m dying,” Arthur said without opening his eyes. 

“You’re hungover,” Eames said, and crouched to be on Arthur’s level. “Darling, really, four shots of tequila?” 

“I have a delicate system,” said Arthur petulantly. “It’s not _loutish_. It is a _well-oiled machine_.” 

“Yeah, it looks like a well-oiled machine this morning. Drink some more water,” Eames said, and put it right next to Arthur’s face. 

Arthur opened one bleary eye and glared at the bottle like it had personally offended him. 

“Water is your friend,” Eames said. “It’s the tequila you should be glaring at.” 

“Who even _invented_  tequila?” grumbled Arthur. “I bet it was someone named Chad.” 

“I don’t think it was.” 

“My first boyfriend was named Chad. He was an asshole.” 

“Did he invent tequila?” 

“No, but he perfected cheat-on-your-boyfriend-with-a-cheerleader-behind-the-bleachers.” 

“Idiot,” said Eames. 

Arthur, to his surprise, smiled. “She gave him herpes. It was okay.”

Eames chuckled and straightened. “Drink your water.” 

“Eames,” Arthur said, before Eames could leave the bathroom, and Eames turned back to him. “Thank you,” Arthur said, and his hand was on the bottle of water but his eyes said that this had nothing whatsoever to do with the water. 

***

Eames somehow spent the entire day in Arthur’s hotel room, answering Mitchell’s texts to Arthur by pretending to be Arthur. So most of the texts to Mitchell said _Fuck you, asshole_.

Eames said, “Is this okay, that I’m telling Mitchell to go fuck himself?”

Arthur, still convinced he was dying, groaned, “Oh, God, yes, I can’t even with Mitchell right now.” 

Eventually, when the sun was setting in the sky, Eames was engrossed enough in a terrible television movie that he was surprised by Arthur appearing in the room’s little sitting area. 

“Hello,” he said. “You’re out of bed.” 

“I might not be dying,” Arthur allowed. 

Eames made room for him on the sofa. “Good. I would have missed you.” 

Arthur gave him a little smile. Then he lifted up his hand, showing Eames what he was holding, and said, “What’s this?” 

“Oh,” Eames said. “Sorry. I was bored.” 

“Apparently, because they’re all over the room. What are they?” 

“They’re fish. Can’t you tell? Origami fish. Made out of today’s newspaper because, well, it was right there.” 

“Origami,” Arthur repeated. “I’d ask how you know origami, but upon reflection, that seems like exactly something you would know.” 

Eames grinned at him. 

“Origami _fish_ ,” Arthur said. 

Eames’s grin faltered and he pushed his hand through his hair nervously. “Yeah.” Maybe that had been out of line. He hadn’t thought of it as he’d been making the fish, but maybe he should have pretended not to know about Escher. 

But Arthur said softly, sounding not at all mad, “I could probably manage to take care of some origami fish.” 

“Careful,” Eames rejoined. “Origami is a very delicate art.” 

“What about origami artists?” Arthur asked, his eyes wide and dark on Eames’s. 

“Origami artists are…” Eames considered, not sure what flirtatious line to take. And then gave up. “Quite mad about you,” he said, on a sigh. 

“Even though I’m a terrible drunk who can’t hold my liquor?”

“I like you with four shots of tequila, but I like you even better without them. And not every relationship can say that, let me tell you.” 

“Relationship,” Arthur said. “Is that what this is?” 

“Darling, we’ve been in a relationship long enough that I can’t remember what I was like before you, and neither can anyone else. We’re the happiest couple I know. I bet we’d be even happier if we had sex.” 

“Most of the time I hate you, you know.”

“That’s where the sex would help.” 

Arthur laughed. “You were super disappointed I didn’t turn out to be a slutty drunk, weren’t you?” 

“A tiny bit,” Eames admitted. 

“Here’s where I fill you in on a secret,” said Arthur. 

Eames cocked his head and gestured for Arthur to continue. 

“I don’t need to be drunk to be slutty.” 

“Well,” said Eames, strangled, after a second, “that’s…important information to know.” 

Arthur grinned. “I do need to not be hungover, though.” 

“Fucking tequila,” said Eames fervently. 

“Also, ‘slutty’ is a sexist term, I think, and I should more accurately say that I plan to live on your cock for the next two days straight.” 

“I am so glad I told Mitchell to fuck off,” said Eames breathlessly. “He can go give this job to someone else now.”

Arthur grinned. And Arthur went around the room collecting every single origami fish. 


End file.
